Shea's Teck
766 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14203
766 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14203
2 people
favorited this theater
Shea’s Teck was converted for 3-projector Cinerama in the 1950’s and ran all films made in that format (both 3 projector and single projector) until the Cinerama era was over. Subsequently it ran “normal” films on the curved screen leftover from “single projector” Cinerama.
The theater was demolished in the aftermath of the destruction of Buffalo, N.Y. Main Street during the disastrous building of a subway system. Because of the extended construction public access to that and other historic downtown Buffalo theaters was totally cut off causing their bankruptcy and forcing the theater going public to attend films in suburban multiplexes.
The lot where the Teck stood is currently empty and covered with weeds.
Contributed by
E. Summer
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 24 comments)
Here try this.
http://cinerama.topcities.com/ctbuffalo.htm
Thanks so much, I have seen this site, but there isn’t an exterior photo.
View link
There is a picture of the Teck at the above website taken in 1981.
As I recall, this theater was converted to 3 strip by actually adding the left & right projection booths outside the physical theater building and knocking port windows through the walls! To gain entry to these booth from the center projection room, open air catwalks were hung on the sides of the building from this room – which must have been an absolute joy to the poor projectionists during the Buffalo winters.
Can anyone else add to this?
I was in several projection rooms of large cinemas in Toronto
and they usually go enough of the width of the hall that two additional projectors could be added for the two side screens.
The problem is geometric distortion which is overcome by
specially created lenses for those projectors which are sending
their picture partly obliquely to the target screen.
AKA LOEWS TECK Interesting.
I am looking for information on what was shown or played at the Teck Theatre in Buffalo, NY. I found tickets in a wall when I was remodling for a production called ‘Her Game’. Does anyone have information on what was shown or played there or about this particular production? I would like to find out the year.
If my memory serves me,during the 70’s the Teck was having trouble getting first run films because the distributors were playing them in the suburban plexes.
The Teck began showing B movies, R rated adult films, and martial arts films.
I got to explore and photograph the Teck in the late 1970’s. There was a huge attic space above the ceiling with ghost outlines on the walls where the balcony had been and bits of surviving decorative plaster that escaped the 1945 gutting of the building. The Cenarama booths on the sides of the theatre were quite far down the auditorium to get the throw correctly to the sides of the screen with flat windows at an angle to the sidewalls. As a Cinerama theatre it must have had a very tunnel like effect for the rear of the auditorium. The place was pretty dirty as well with a lot of air handling dust on the walls and ceiling.
Would you still have those photos and be willing to share? I would love to see those? Thanks!